Lacey Luzzi: Salted: A humorous, cozy mystery! (Lacey Luzzi Mafia Mysteries Book 3)

by Gina LaManna

  “Babe?” Blake’s voice on the other side of the phone was a bit raspy, and a lot confused.

  “Wrong babe,” I said. “It’s me. Were you sleeping?”

  “It depends.” Blake yawned through the phone, and I had a mental picture of him lying in bed, shirt off, sweatpants low on his waist.

  “Well…” I paused, trying to think of the most effective way to get in his door. Especially when there was no saying whether or not he wanted to see me. “You know, I just did yoga.”

  There was a pause on his end. “And?”

  I struggled to come up with a good follow-up to his question. A list of options ran through my mind, and I was not proud of the one I settled on. “And now I’m...in the mood.”

  “I’m free.” Blake hung up.

  A small flame in my stomach lit up – they weren’t serious! I set my phone in the cup holder and gunned it towards my ex’s house. I wasn’t extremely proud of my manipulative tactic to get in the door, but hey – a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. And Blake was on my To Do list.

  Not like that.

  Well, not really like that.

  Chapter 7

  Swinging my car through Uptown, I cruised past Meg’s bar and into the residential neighborhood outside of the up and coming city center. The place was filled with recent college grads, bustling about with a fresh wad of dough in their pockets, courtesy of their first “big kid” jobs. The bar scene was a lively one – filled with the same post-grads who’d just bought houses, but were trying to drink like they were still in college. This crew mixed with the crowd of young couples searching for love and trying marriage on for size.

  It was a nice area, too expensive for my taste, and far too classy. The last shooting here had been quite a while ago now, and to my knowledge, most cars didn’t get stolen off the streets. The worst things happening in Uptown were drunken and disorderly conduct, and Meg’s bar. Sometimes she drew odd clientele, thanks to the cozy corners perfect for confidential conversations. Other than that, the place was a pretty standard small city joint.

  I Tokyo-drifted my car into a parking spot outside Blake’s bachelor-style home. With a little love and care it could be turned into a cute starter place, perfect for a couple in love. But since I’d missed that boat with him, the yellow walls looked bare instead of cozy and the tiny kitchen contained beer and beef sticks instead of meatloaf and pasta, if history told the future. Though I couldn’t say the beer and beef sticks would go if I’d moved in – I had a ways to go with my domestication skills, and Nora was still working with me on mastering the whole meatloaf thing.

  I rang the doorbell and pounded on the screen door at the same time.

  When the door flew open, Blake looked like exactly like the cutie I’d pictured on the car ride over here. The tattoos down the right side of his body accented his lean, lithe frame and his dark bedroom eyes. His hair was a bit longer these days, the perfect length to run my fingers through and grab tight. He had on black sweatpants that sagged below his boxer line, and the sinuous way he leaned against the doorframe caused his boxers to shift suggestively lower. I forced my eyes up to his.

  “Wow,” he said. “You are in the mood.”

  “Yoga,” I said, with a shrug. “And, I like your tattoos.”

  His bed-hair stuck adorably up in every direction while his eyes glinted a warm shade of brown. Despite his rolled-out-of-bed look, he smelled like he’d showered with some fancy shampoo in the last hour, sort of a fresh rain scent.

  “God,” he said, his eyes aggressively raking up and down my body, lingering on the obvious curve of my rear end flaunted by the yoga pants. His gaze migrated to my still-damp shirt, the outline of my black bra visible underneath. “Come in.”

  “Glad I made the cut,” I grumbled.

  The door had barely closed before his hands reached out, snapping the waistband of my yoga pants.

  “Whoa,” I said. “Hang on. I’m not even inside yet.”

  “That shirt…not necessary.” Blake reached for me, and I had a quick sense of déjà vu – his hand deftly unhooking my bra, finding it a nice home on the hallway floor, leading me into the bedroom…not today.

  “Blake, I told a little bit of a lie,” I said.

  “What’s that?” Blake hummed his response, and I could tell he was focused on getting my clothes off, and my words were bouncing right off his thick skull.

  I lightly clasped his wrists in mine. “Listen. Focus. Up here.” I gestured towards my eyes. “I’m not here for sex.”

  At the word sex, his eyes shot up to mine. “What?”

  “That part was the lie.”

  “That’s mean,” he said.

  “No,” I said. “Well, yes. I admit it was a little rude. But you have a girlfriend, and I am not that type of girl. I thought you’d know that.”

  “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said.

  “What?” It was my turn to take a step back. “But Laura…”

  “Laura and I had been on two dates when you saw us. She was preemptive in calling us a couple.”

  “Oh.”

  “We talked about it after, and we’re going to take things slow, and that means no boyfriend-girlfriend right now. We’re not exclusive.”

  “How many other people are you seeing?” I asked. “Jeesh.”

  “Nobody,” Blake said. “That’s my point. Lacey…you know you’re my first option. You always will be – that’s not a question.”

  My mouth gaped a bit. I’d been hoping that Blake and Laura weren’t serious, but I hadn’t let myself hope that he still wanted me. Well, beyond the occasional roll in the hay.

  “You’re saying…”

  “I’m saying that I asked you to marry me,” Blake said emphatically. “I gave you one condition, and that was introducing me to your family. You said no. And I can’t bring myself to marry a woman who refuses to let me meet her family. I want…I want a family someday, kids, everything. You have to let me decide for myself whether or not your family is as crazy as you say they are.”

  My hands let Blake’s wrists drop from my grasp.

  He took my hands back, running his thumb over the outside. “I’m not exclusive with Laura because I’m crossing my fingers that I still have a chance with you. Yes, she’s nice. Yes, she’s pretty…but she’s not you.”

  “I… I don’t know what to say.” I said, stepping back towards the front door.

  “Don’t you go running away again, Lacey,” Blake said, mimicking my step towards the door. “That’s what you always do. You run.”

  “I’m not running,” I said. But I’m considering speed-walking.

  “No jogging, speed-walking, or crawling away. Sit here for a minute, and talk to me.” Blake said, reading my mind. We were so close I could feel his breath on my cheek.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “You came here. What do you want?” Blake pressed.

  My gut piped up, telling me that now was not the time to tell him I’d manipulated my way through his front door to pry into his kind-of-girlfriend’s spa hobbies. “I guess… I’m confused.”

  “Why did you come over here?” Blake asked. “You tell me you’re in the mood, then you show up and you’re not – and now you refuse to talk. You’re confused? Then I’m…whatever confused times a hundred is.”

  “Fair,” I said. “Fair. I was in the mood. But I came here, and I realized I’m not the girl that will sleep with you, even if you’re not exclusive.”

  “I know that, Lacey. The way to solve that very problem would be for you to be exclusive with me.”

  “I…I’m, I need a little time,” I said. “I came over here thinking you had a girlfriend, and I didn’t expect – uh, all of this.”

  “It shouldn’t surprise you,” Blake said. “I want to marry you. I’ve wanted to marry you since I met you in the back seat of the cop car. Take some time, but I can only wait for so long. Because what I said is true – I do want a family and kids some
day. And if you don’t…”

  “Give me a little more time,” I said. “You don’t have to wait if you and – er, if you and Laura have a good thing going.”

  “I’m not waiting, Lacey. I just haven’t met anyone that compares to you. But it’s only a matter of time before – well, before someone wants to marry me, and I want to marry them. I hope it’s you. But if not…”

  I nodded, my throat closing around the words I wanted to say. Standing, I gave him a kiss on the cheek and shuffled to the front door, moving like a zombie, my head in the clouds. I’d meant to come here to distract myself from the case at hand, but was leaving with more on my mind than ever.

  “I’ll talk to you soon,” Blake said. I moved my head in some form of a nod, I think. Somehow, I made it into my car and pulled away from Blake’s.

  The thought of visiting Kim Cho was no more appealing than it had been before I’d stopped by my ex’s. However, now I needed a new distraction – one to keep my mind off of Blake proposing to me (kind of) for what I suspected might be the last time. After all, it was only a matter of time before he found someone else.

  And as much as I didn’t want to consider that thought, I needed to think about it sooner rather than later. But for now, I wanted only to keep distracting myself. I’d have to deal with my issues at some point, but not now. Now, I needed to push through the confusion and finish my assignment.

  After all, the rent needed to be paid whether I was confused or not.

  ** **

  I cruised easily down the freeway, the drive a welcome distraction from my thoughts of Blake. My mind wound through a very confusing maze as I approached Maplewood. In addition to my thoughts of Blake (which I was pushing out of my head, since they made me queasy), I had no idea how to handle Anthony.

  He was easy to look at. He was strong. He was tough and smart, but he also didn’t exactly seem like dating material.

  Then there was Ira, who was a hippie sort of free spirit. I didn’t want to date him, but maybe taking a few of his yoga classes could be good for my mojo right now. Getting mixed up with the mob messed with my aura, I think. I’d been unlucky in love, apartments, and cars. Actually, life in general hadn’t been going so spectacularly lately. Maybe a little bit of soul-cleansing with Ira would do me good.

  I hadn’t realized how far I’d gone into Maplewood until it was too late. I was operating on autopilot, having made the drive many, many times in the past. The nearest Dairy Queen was near White Bear Avenue. Whenever I needed an ice cream fix, this was my location of choice. My Dilly Bar Dealer.

  I drove past a sprawling suburb, not too nice and not too un-nice. It was significantly less dangerous than the neighborhood where I lived now; my assessment was based solely upon the bridge graffiti. Where my front steps had been inked with words that DQ would not print on a birthday cake, Maplewood had bridges with colorful designs, artists’ signatures, and even a flower. I’m pretty sure I saw a pink rose that was actually very skillfully drawn.

  Families owned dogs in this neighborhood, and children played on square front lawns. The houses were small but sturdy, and it was the sort of place where someone would give you a jump when your battery died, instead of ignoring you with one hand on a canister of pepper spray.

  My GPS brought me to a stop in front of a thick, unassuming apartment complex off of McKnight, one of the suburb’s main drags. A main drag in a town this size meant there was a gas station, a freeway entrance, and a Target Greatland accessible within a ten-mile radius.

  There was a small pool in the back of the complex that looked like it’d been moderately cleaned at some point in the past five years and might not kill you if you swam in it. A grumpy looking Hispanic man, probably in his late thirties, watched me park while his pit bull took the dump of a lifetime on the front lawn. Dog and owner alike made awkward eye contact with me while the animal finished his pile of doo, and I climbed from the front seat of the Lumina.

  All in all, the place wasn’t all bad. I was willing to bet at least half the units had working fire alarms, which was more than I could say for my apartment. Even my Lumina fit in around here; it was boring and unflashy, but got the job done and would most likely survive a minor explosion. Maybe I should see what vacancies Kim had while I was here.

  I dialed the number Clay had left for me on my cell and let it ring through to voicemail. I left a quick message, asking Kim to call me back, but he didn’t pick up. I sent a quick text asking for a tour of the apartments, just in case he’d joined the twenty-first century and received SMS’s.

  By now, the Hispanic man and his dog were gone. They’d retreated into the apartment complex, and I’d managed to catch a peek at the door code on the front of the building. It looked like he had typed in a straight line, so I sidled casually up to the door and punched in a 2 – 5 – 8. I yanked on the door. Nothing.

  The clatter of the still-locked door was a bit louder than I’d expected, so after punching in another combination I tried pulling with a much lighter touch. This time, a light click and the whoosh of air signaled I’d hit the jackpot. Sliding through the entrance with ease, I was a little disappointed to find that the hallway was narrow and dim – I wouldn’t find much in this plain walkway. There were no doors sitting open or windows propped up a crack, which was to be expected. Still, I’d hoped for a balcony to sneak onto or a glimpse of something.

  I padded up a flight of worn stairs, grateful for the thick carpeting which masked my footsteps. Another long, dimly lit hallway stretched before me.

  I didn’t bother exploring that route since it was clearly a dead end. I trekked up a few more flights of stairs until I reached the highest level of the building, five stories up. The stairwell changed here; the carpet was new and crisp, barely worn. Expensive-looking ornamental decorations stylishly placed in the corners – vases large enough to hold a palm tree, though completely empty. A few pieces of artwork hung tastefully on the wall and matched the clean carpet.

  The other odd thing about this level was that there was no long, dimly lit hallway. Instead, there was a door right off the staircase. There was no hallway. I wondered if this was Kim’s penthouse. If so, it wasn’t a bad deal. He had an entire level of the complex all to himself.

  Or herself, I corrected. One never knew.

  I put my face up to the door and pressed a wide eye against the tiny peephole, trying to beat the fish-eye glass and see inside. I stood on my tiptoes, fingers lightly splayed against the door, careful to make zero sound in case the tenant was inside. Who knew? Especially if it belonged to…

  Yodeleiiiii! Yodeleeeeee! Yodellloooo! My phone went off in a wild rendition of a Swedish yodeling song. Dangit, Clay!

  We had an ongoing feud – he liked to make all phones in the house yodel, while I liked to listen to the Backstreet Boys at full volume about twice a month. We equally annoyed each other with our habits, except this time it went beyond annoyance. The yodel echoed through the hallway, bounced off the empty vases and vibrated on the framed paintings. I winced, hoping that the apartment was empty. Because for all I knew, the apartment could belong to…

  “Yes?” The door whipped open.

  An Asian man stood before me. He almost reached my shoulders, but his eyes were dark and mean-looking, and I had a desperate desire to turn around and leap from the window and cannonball into the pool. I’d take my chances with the bacteria that may or may not be growing in there.

  “Uh, hello.” I forced a smile. “I’m looking for Mister Kim.”

  “Why?” he asked, scanning me up and down without apology.

  “I would like a tour of a vacant apartment, if you have one available. I thought I saw an opening online.” I said a silent prayer that the apartment complex had a website where this might actually be possible.

  His eyes looked me up and down suspiciously, and though he was smaller in size than me, I felt like a bug he was debating squishing. Eventually his gaze leveled, and though he didn’t appear any less suspicious
, he gave a succinct nod. “I am Meester Kim.”

  “If it’s a bad time to show the apartments, I can come back.”

  “You have job?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I tried to look like a banker, or possibly a librarian.

  “You have money?”

  “Yes.” The lies were just flowing from my mouth now. A job? Money? I sounded like a successful woman, instead of the kind-of-squeaking-by, twenty-eightish woman I really was.

  “Eight hundred a month. Eight hundred to move in. No lease. You okay with that?”

  “Yeah, that’s perfect!” I smiled.

  “You give me cash?” He crossed his arms.

  “I don’t have it on me right this second, but I can bring it tomorrow.” I put my hands on my hips. “That is, if I like the apartment.”

  “What you do for a job?” He eyed my stance with a curious expression now.

  “Look, do I get to see the apartment or not? I didn’t come here for an interview. You want cash? I’ll give you cash.” I leaned forward with more confidence than I felt.

  We had a miniature staring contest, and I had just decided to turn around when his demeanor cracked the tiniest bit.

  “Fine. Apartment on second floor is available. One bedroom. Air conditioning is broken, but is no big deal. You want internet, you buy it. I buy water. No drugs, crazy parties, or dogs.”

  “I saw a dog earlier in here…”

  “No dogs, I said.” Mister Kim stared me down again.

  “All right, cool,” I said. “I don’t have one anyway. I can’t keep a rock alive.” I gave a little guffaw which quickly turned into a cough when it was clear that Mister Kim didn’t get my humor.

  I followed him down three creaky flights of stairs before he took out a honkin’ two-pronged key and let himself into an apartment. The smell of bleach pervaded my nostrils, though the apartment wasn’t extraordinarily clean in any sense. It was as if someone had sprayed bleach through a squirt-bottle, mistaking it for Febreeze.